[texhax] "@" : vowel or glottal stop ? (was : Some puzzling TeX)

[Philip Taylor (Webmaster, Ret'd)]

I have never understood (and continue to fail to understand)
why, when Don made it quite clear in Plain.TeX that "@" is a
vowel, Leslie and his followers insist on treating it as
a glottal stop.  Why one earth did they use the horribly
ugly :

	\@firstofone

instead of the far more intuitive and elegant :

	\first at fone

** Phil.
--------
Uwe Lueck wrote:

> That is remarkable, Heiko (tested!).
> Is this your discovery, or have you seen it elsewhere?
> It could be a proposal for latex.ltx.
>
> Likewise, the next line in latex.ltx,
>
>      \def\:{\@xifnch} \expandafter\def\: {\futurelet\@let at token\@ifnch}
>
> could be replaced by
>
>      \@firstofone{\def\@xifnch} {\futurelet\@let at token\@ifnch}
>
> (tested!).

Not sent from my i-Pad, i-Phone, Blackberry, Blueberry, or any
such similar poseurs' toy, none of which would I be seen dead
with even if they came free with every packet of cornflakes.